The Lies You Weren't Told
by Woodswolf
Summary: Many things in Ninjago have become hidden with time. However, many things have also been revealed. What does this have to do with the mysterious past of one little Nindroid and one of the oldest people in Ninjago? - Based on a theory about the next season.
1. Prelude

**THE LIES YOU WEREN'T TOLD**

_One: Prelude_

* * *

_Awake._

_Awake._

_I am... __**awake.**_

The Overlord, weaker than he had ever been, summoned a small, dim, electric nonphysical form to be his temporary new body.

He searched his surroundings - the Dark Island appeared to have sunk back into the sea. Barely visible along the horizon were bright flashes of light.

_Fireworks?_ he thought. _The land of Ninjago must be throwing a party because I am 'gone'. I must not have been truly banished for very long._

The Overlord realized many things in the next moment: his army was defeated, lost forever; all of the Ninja were more powerful than they had ever been; and most importantly, destroying almost all hope of his own recovery, his servant Garmadon was probably cured of the venom of the Great Snake.

He had almost no chance to get his revenge now. However, he had the advantage that he was awake and active as he had not been in so long.

Now he had to wait.

* * *

TWO YEARS LATER

* * *

Zane looked closely the blueprints of the Juggernaut Mark II again, and then quickly pointed out his father's error.

"Excuse me for interrupting, but the green wire is supposed to be connected here, not there."

"Hmm?" Dr. Julien mumbled. He examined the blueprints, with his glasses pushed high up on his nose. Zane pointed to a certain spot to help him.

When his creator noticed his mistake, he beamed at Zane. "I'm getting too old to do this, but it's just so much fun!" he smiled his wide grin. "Go ahead and fix it."

Zane slowly uncurled the end of the green wire from the attachment site and replaced it in the correct location. He felt the Falcon land on his shoulder and looked up at it, smiling, before turning to its creator.

Each day over the past two years, he tried to memorize something about the man before him that his memories didn't tell him - today, it was the strange way his eyes sparkled when he discovered something new, or the exact position that his glasses perched in right up next to his eyes.

He knew, of course, why he was doing this. Zane had almost lost his father once, had the Skeletons not revived him and set him to work. He never allowed himself to linger on the subject for very long, however.

"Well, then," Dr. Julien said, crinkling his brow, "I think this one is finished. Is that all of them?" he wondered.

Zane called up the list of where all the guardian robots were supposed to be sent.

"Forty-two, one for every major town and city in Ninjago."

"We have enough for that now," Dr. Julien commented. Zane remembered the next item.

"Fifteen for use in and around Ninjago City."

"Yep," the old man answered.

"One to stay here and guard the Warehouse."

"That's this one, then," Julien mumbled. "We're done!"

"Now they can protect everyone, and we'll barely have to worry," Zane said. "There's no one truly evil left in Ninjago anymore to cause problems."

A strange expression crossed Dr. Julien's face as Zane spoke, but it was gone just as quickly as it appeared.

"What should we do now?" he asked.

* * *

A few hours later, the two found themselves in the small private library attached to the building, a few rooms down from where the machines had been built. Zane sat in one of the armchairs reading a battered history text while Julien looked over the shelves, trying to find something he hadn't already read.

Zane tried to focus half of his attention on the book and the other half on Dr. Julien's hand helping scan the shelves, but ended up watching his creator look over every title on the shelves that lined the walls.

His hand eventually lingered over one large, black volume, and sat there for a while before the old man pulled it off the shelf.

"What is that book, Father?" Zane asked simply. "I don't think I've ever seen it."

Dr. Julien walked back over to his chair with a slight frown on his face. "An old scrapbook. I don't think I've touched it in forty years."

He sat down and positioned the book on his lap. Zane set down the book he was 'reading' and walked over to stand behind his left shoulder.

Julien opened the book to the first set of pages. On the page was a set of pictures of him when he was much younger, most likely in his mid-to-late twenties.

One picture in particular caught Zane's eye, and he stared at it for quite a while. The black-and-white photograph was of the younger Julien bending over a strange, dark shape he didn't recognize. A welding mask was pushed up on top of his head, covering most of the short hair that lay there. A blowtorch sat on the desk nearby.

"What's that?" Zane asked, pointing to the dark object.

Dr. Julien sighed and thought for a little while before answering.

"I think - I think it's you," he said, stuttering slightly. "I don't know when this was taken."

Zane stayed silent, drinking it in. A new memory.

Dr. Julien turned the pages clumsily every so often. He skipped a page every now and then, but Zane couldn't tell whether he realized he was doing it or that it was completely accidental.

Zane was reading a newspaper clipping attached to one of the pages when he noticed an interesting paragraph:

_Dr. Julien, who has won many awards on his previous robotics research, expects he will probably be able to pick up multiple awards with his newest project that he claims is 'a hundred years ahead of its time'. The conference will be held at the Ninjago City Conference Center next week in Hall C at 3:00 PM._

"I never knew Ninjago City had a conference center," Zane said. "Where is it?"

The old man thought for a moment. "If I remember right, it got torn down the year after the conference due to a high chance of structural failure," he said, "and it never got rebuilt."

Dr. Julien closed the scrapbook, and Zane noticed he skipped the last set of pages.

He realized that he'd seen the book before, and felt a question form in his mind.

"What was in that box we left behind, anyway?"

Zane could have sworn he saw his creator's eye twitch.

"Which box?"

"The box where I found that book," Zane said, pointing to the scrapbook in his hands.

* * *

_It was in a third room, one that Zane could not remember ever setting foot in, that he found a large storage space filled with all kinds of machinery, gadgets, gizmos, and spare parts. He could not have named more than half the things in the room even if he tried._

_He had found the doorway behind a few stacked boxes of parts in the room off to the side of the main area. He had a sense that the things that were back here were forgotten for one reason or another, and left to turn to ash and dust with time._

_There was a shelf of books he had never seen before at the very back, and he walked over to them, wondering exactly what he felt was wrong about the scene._

_Tucked back in a corner next to the bookcase, hidden barely out of sight, was an old, beat-up cardboard box. A large black book sat on top of it that must have been at least as old._

_Dr. Julien caught him snooping, though, and came over. "I was wondering what you were doing in here. Now it seems we have another shelf of books to pack."_

_The old man smiled, and Zane picked up the book. It was lighter than it looked._

"_We'll have a look at that later," his creator promised. "Let's finish packing."_

* * *

Dr. Julien thought for a moment while he waited. Zane knew it probably was nothing important - another box of spare parts, for instance, which had been quite abundant in the room - but something bothered him about that box, and the way Julien had been randomly skipping pages in the scrapbook.

He wasn't exactly sure what it was that bothered him, either - was it simply the fact that he wanted to know, or was it the same kind of gut feeling he had had repeatedly with the Falcon those many months ago?

"That was a box of some of my old tools," Julien finally answered, expelling all rumors of anything otherwise. "I started putting some of them away over time when we lived there, remember? I wasn't using them as much, and didn't need to. Samukai wouldn't let me take any of them with me - he supplied tools, although I would have preferred my own."

Zane was satisfied with the explanation, and it matched up with what he could remember, but it still bothered him somehow.

"Tomorrow is the day you go back with the others, anyway," the old man reminded him. "We'll talk more when you come back."

* * *

There Zane was, standing on the deck of the Destiny's Bounty, doing some quick catch-up with his brothers. Jay was filling everyone in on how his date with Nya had gone, with Kai giving him a death glare the whole time. Zane was only half-listening, his attention drifting in and out of focus.

It had been Sensei Wu who had first suggested their new 'schedule' eighteen months ago. He, Garmadon, Misako, and Lloyd had wanted to get used to being a family again after so many years of struggle, pain, and fighting. And due to the fact that Garmadon was no longer evil, the Overlord was defeated, the Skeletons had no means of returning to Ninjago, and all the Serpentine had mysteriously disappeared, there really was no reason for them to stay on alert all the time.

Once they thought about it, though, everyone realized that it was just what they needed - Cole wanted the time off to spend it with his father; Jay wanted it so he could have time with Nya and visit his parents (which wasn't entirely his idea); Kai wanted the time so he could make absolutely sure that Nya was not getting into trouble; and Zane had wanted it so that he could spend time with Dr. Julien, his creator, partner and friend for almost fifty years.

So, thus, for four days out of the week, the Ninja would stick together on the Bounty - training, joking, and just hanging out - while the other three days would be spent however they would like.

The rest of the day passed quickly for him - it felt good to be back with his brothers.

* * *

The Overlord flew over Ninjago in his ghostly form, no longer truly confined by the prison of the Dark Island. He was searching for something - anything - that he could turn to his cause.

It was not easy to find anything - it was night now, and although it was not difficult to see, it was difficult to find villages and towns without light or heat radiating from them.

He was flying over some sort of cold, deserted space, when a strange string of formations caught his attention. The Overlord floated down to them and examined them, eventually noticing the building built inside a nearby tree.

He went inside and through the rooms within - a maze of locations that he did not know how to maneuver through. Eventually, he recognized what he was looking for - the object that pulled him here was inside a box at the far end of the room.

The Overlord zapped it with some electric energy from his form, and the grotesque figure slowly rose out of the box. There it was, a mass of rusting metal and wires and melted plastic and a deathly gaze. A red light snapped on, and it slowly began to emit heat that he could sense.

"I aM zAYun," it said in a strange robotic monotone. "I wiLL Kill yOO nOw."

"_You cannot kill me,"_ the Overlord hissed. _"I have come to ask a favor of you."_

"NO mOR favORs," the robot said in as fierce of a tone as it could make. "OnLY reveNGE."

"_I will help you with yours if you assist me with mine,"_ the Overlord promised.

"WhaT dOO yOO ASk mEE tOO dOO, sIr?" it asked, trying to make a deal. "ANd hOW wiLL It hElp mEE?"

"_I only ask you to get your 'revenge', and do the best possible job with it."_

The robot was silent. "ISS mY OlD mAstER stiLL aLIve?"

He was not sure how to answer this question. He pretended he knew. _"I believe so,"_ the Overlord answered. _"I know your successor is, Zane, assuming that is your name."_

"YeS."

"_Good,"_ he said. He would have smiled, if he could in this form. _"I want you to find a friend of mine... we've never met, but I'm almost certain he is still alive in a city far from here."_

"WhOO iSS hEE?"

"_Let me tell you everything you need to know..."_ the Overlord hissed, staring at the red light he could not truly see.

This was going _much_ better than he had expected.

* * *

_(A/N): So, this is my next Ninjago story!_

_Anyway, it's also being posted on deviantART, where you can also find the theory that this is based on._

_Here's a link to the theory (remove the spaces):_

_greenwood - wolf . deviantart # / d 5 our 5 x_

_I know already that there are a lot of things people will not be able to understand if they have not read the theory, so you might want to look at that first! ;D_


	2. Partnership

**THE LIES YOU WEREN'T TOLD**

_Two: Partnership_

* * *

Pythor soon realized he was having a harder and harder time moving unnoticed through the streets and sewers of Ninjago City.

While he used to have free reign through the sewers he had invisibly escaped into however long ago, they were now becoming another tomb as he began to run in circles like a mouse. _Something_ was watching him, that much he knew – he had caught the occasional glimpse of it through a grade or around a corner, and that prompted him to abandon whole sections of the sewers in favor of remaining hidden and undisturbed.

When the Great Devourer had been destroyed, Pythor had slithered invisibly through a nearby manhole and began planning. Had he not become impossibly lost for weeks on end in the counterintuitive, repetitive system, he would have escaped the city and gone to the city of Ouroboros to meet up with the other tribes. By the time he knew the sewers well enough to escape, an earthquake – or, in general, something tremorous and destructive – rocked the city, and he hid in a dark hole for several hours until he could no longer feel any shaking of the earth.

Once he finally cared to examine the surface several days later, it was a place as toxic and dangerous as the new zombie-like residents were. Some sort of dragon-like creature perched on a high rooftop, and that was all he saw before he darted back into the sewer and vowed to never come out again. He knew, at that point, that the other Serpentine were either dead or turned into the same sort of creatures he had seen walking through the city. As time had passed, he grew less aware of what was happening outside the cold, dark tunnels that were now both his new home and new prison.

And then the _thing_ started stalking him, watching him with what could doubtlessly be described as a morbid fascination. Pythor knew that if his paranoia grew any further, he would have to seclude himself to the depths of the smelly, wet tunnels and live in the complete darkness until he died.

Two sounds echoed off of the walls of the pipes at that moment – the first sounded like a small explosion, and the other sounded like metal hitting metal. He couldn't tell which direction the sounds came from – they seemed to be echoing to him from both directions down the pipe at the same time. He retreated back in the direction he came, since he was unable to tell which direction the noises came from.

A whirring noise reached him, barely audible over the slight sloshing he was making in the waters of the sewer. It was following him now. He tried to slither faster.

"DO nOT fLEE. A frIENd oF yoURs sENT mEE."

He stopped. The robotic monotone surprised him; he had figured that his stalker would not speak before it killed him.

Instead, he decided to ask a cautious question to test the truth of what it had said.

"Who is this _friend?_" he asked with venom in his tone. "It wouldn't happen to be one of the others, would it?"

"HEE saiD thAT yOO HAd NeVEr mET, bUT thAT hEE knOWs yOO," the voice said back to him. "HEE dID nOT lEAVe a NAMe."

Pythor frowned. It was true that the dark shape before him (he could sense the heat coming from it, but he couldn't sense all of what his dim vision saw) probably would have killed him already were it going to; but it could be using his own tactics – to keep the pawn in the chess game until it is no longer useful.

He had used that very strategy on that little boy he had forgotten the name of, and it had worked quite well then. Pythor supposed that he should simply remain alert and on-edge at the moment and hear the creature out.

"HEE fILLeD mEE iN On A LOt oF thINGs," the creature's voice told him. "ONe wAs THaT wEE hAVE A CoMMon eNEmy nOW. HEE alSO tOLD mEE tOO rELEAse yOUr ALLieS."

"Hm?" Pythor asked. "What do you mean by that?"

"FOLLoW mEE."

* * *

Nya walked into the dining room on the Destiny's Bounty to find Jay on the floor, as he almost always was these days, doing his push-ups. _Always before breakfast, and never a minute late,_ she thought.

Once the threat of the Overlord had been taken care of, Cole had remembered something that Jay had said. Specifically, it had been about the fact that Jay did a thousand and one push-ups every morning, or so he claimed. The conversation that followed had (naturally) ended with everyone except Zane taking a bet on exactly how long he could keep up the 'established hobby'.

Soon after, Kai and Cole started waking up before him and getting ready to _count_ them for him every morning, which drove Jay completely mad (Kai had, more than once, 'completely lost track' of what number he was on, and started over). Now, even though everyone had already lost their bets, Jay kept going just to get sweet revenge on the two of them.

She sat at the table and examined the local newspaper she had picked up from off the ship. Ninjago City's new mayor had been installed to the position; the supply of rice was expected to increase by ten percent above previously expected values, due to a record yield in Jamanakai Village and various other locales; and there was an editorial on how perfect and peaceful the last two years had been, with only some minor incidents here and there.

Nothing really caught her eye at the moment. She prepared to turn to the next page when she suddenly noticed a small box showing articles in other parts of the paper.

_**Attempted robbery of department store, **__page 6B_

_**Donated defensive robots found destroyed in alleyways, **__page 8C_

_**Ninjago City Samurai defeat Western Sands Vipers 20-14, **__page 3D_

Nya turned to the proper page for the second news blip and looked for the article. Once she found it, she began to read.

_**Robotic defenders don't do their job**_

_**Five found partially deactivated in Ninjago City, neighboring villages**_

_NINJAGO CITY – If you had asked Mei Ning a week ago about the newly donated defensive robots, she would have been extremely happy with their performance._

"_Crime rates had already gone down," she told me when I asked for a short interview. "I figured that they could only go lower with these new additions to the towns."_

_Now several of these robots from Ninjago City and the surrounding villages have been deactivated somehow. Police statements say that they look like they were sabotaged by some sort of blade-like tool, and are currently investigating._

_Mei, however, isn't happy anymore. "The past two years have been fine. Then someone puts these things here, they're destroyed, and I don't feel as safe anymore," she told me. "I mean, this was how that fiasco started four years ago. Just little incidents here and there that weren't quite explainable. Now look at this, and tell me that history isn't going to repeat itself."_

_The creator of the robots was unable to be found for a response. It is assumed that he is in his laboratory examining and repairing the damages._

_Mei Ning, however, stated quite clearly that she and her two children were going to move immediately. "I just want to my family as far away from this strange violence as possible," she said._

Nya frowned, and read the article again. She thought on it, and then called Jay over from the corner of the room where he was doing the nearly-impossible amount of push-ups.

"Jay?" she asked. "You worked on some sort of robot for a little while when you visited Zane for the weekend a few months ago, right?"

The blue ninja stood up and walked over to her. "Well… yeah, for a little while. I learned a few new tricks that'll help the next time the Boun-"

"Some of them have been sabotaged," Nya told him.

"What?" he asked. She passed him the news clipping and he began to read.

After Jay had finished, he did a triple take between her and the newspaper. The first words out of his mouth were a long string of several terms implying 'confused', assembled in a random order: 'but', 'no', 'huh', 'what', and 'how'.

"I know," Nya said. "There's -"

Then her wristwatch beeped at her, informing her of some sort of message on the computer in the main room.

The two of them ran there to check it. It was an e-mail from the Ninjago City Police Department, apparently from the chief.

_If you Ninja could investigate, it would be very helpful. It's beginning to look like this case is more your speciality._

_The footage I've sent you was recovered from a demolished security camera on the south side of the city. They appear to be heading west, although they could have changed direction._

Attached was a video file, just as the e-mail had described.

Nya glanced at Jay, and a concerned look passed between them. She was surprised he didn't have some sort of joke to say to lighten the mood.

She opened the file, and it began to play.

The timestamp in the upper right corner stated that the video was from before sunrise a few days before. The image was of an idle street – the road had no traffic, the sidewalks were deserted. A streetlamp was clearly visible on the left side of the shot, but most of the sidewalk underneath it was out of the view.

Something was moving in the alley nearby – a shadow was moving, or maybe it was two shadows. Even though there was no sound, she could almost hear a discussion taking place.

One of the figures emerged into the streetlight. Purple skin, black markings, magenta eyes…

It was Pythor.

He was _alive_.

"Jay, _where are the others?"_


	3. Present

**THE LIES YOU WEREN'T TOLD**

_Three: Present_

* * *

Kai examined the street with the others, looking for any evidence as to where Pythor may have wandered off to. He was growing angrier by the second; any little thing in this useless search would make him snap now. They'd been at this for hours already.

He would pay to be back on the Bounty right now. While Nya had been giving them updates on her analysis of the video and additional information she was receiving from the police (which was little to none), he just wanted to do something a little more interesting than stand around in this alleyway looking for 'snake prints'!

Jay and Lloyd seemed to share his sentiment on the issue. Zane and Cole were the only ones really looking anymore, and they had yet to find anything as well.

"Ugh, this is useless!" Kai said. "We haven't found anything at all! Are we even in the right _alley?_"

"We don't know, Kai," Cole sighed.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, we went over this already," Jay piped up. "We don't know where they were, of _course_ we don't know where they were, because the police found the camera on the ground next to a smashed robot _on the other side of the city!_"

"We have to keep looking," Lloyd said. "Maybe we should just move on to the next block. I don't think there's anything here."

Kai looked over at Zane, who had been looking around as they discussed. He saw him freeze, staring at something on the building across the street.

"Hey, Zane," Kai said.

Zane didn't respond. "Earth to Zane. Are you still there?"

"That's it," Zane muttered.

"What's it?" Jay wondered.

"Did you find something?" Cole asked.

Kai looked at Zane. His eyes were glowing blue already. When he looked up, Kai saw the dark purple-blue bird speeding down at them from high above.

The falcon made its way over to a hole in the wall opposite where the camera was guessed to have rested. It looked in the cavity, and came out with something in its beak.

Then the Destiny's Bounty landed on the roof above them, and the look on Nya and Sensei's faces told them that they had found something, too.

All of them boarded the ship immediately, jumping up and around to get onto the deck. The falcon flew up with them, following Zane, and gave what it had in its beak to him before flying off to another location.

"I brightened the video footage," Nya told them as they all ran into the bridge. "I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before. But you just have to see this for yourself."

Once they were there, she started it and stood back.

It was the same footage – that much was obvious. Pythor was back in the alley, his colors off from the increased brightness level. He was looking at something behind him, and seemed to be talking with whatever it was.

Then he emerged from the alley, and Nya paused the video.

Kai was the first one to react. "Nya, what _is_ that thing?"

She glanced up at the grey, blurred mass of _something_.

"I don't know. But it's hanging out with Pythor."

* * *

Dr. Julien left the Warehouse at three o'clock sharp with nothing but a pen, his wallet, and a small flash drive that he hadn't bothered to take out of his pocket.

The note he had left for Zane wasn't entirely a lie – he _was_ going to visit a colleague, although said 'colleague' wasn't… well, he couldn't be sure of that. Not anymore. Not after he saw the still video frame Zane had sent him.

The melted, warped, twisted, _wrong_ humanoid shape of the object was one he knew too well. But Julien still needed to make sure that that _wasn't_ what he thought it was.

He called for a cab. Julien told the driver that he would pay extra on top of the bill if he could get him to and from the Birchwood Forest as quickly as possible. The driver agreed wholeheartedly, and he was out of the winding city streets within half an hour.

Minutes turned to hours. The driver repeatedly tried to start up a conversation, and Julien indulged him whenever he did. It was something to keep his mind and focus off of the terrifying task before him.

He used the rest of the time to think of what he would do if what he saw in the image was true. His memory of _those_ days had steadily deteriorated from time, trauma, and tentative ignorance, a trifecta of defense mechanisms whose consequences most certainly wouldn't help him now.

The yellow cab arrived at the edge of the forest about an hour from sundown. Julien told the driver to stay for the moment, that it would not be more than twenty minutes, and that he had more than enough money to pay the extraordinarily large bill already glaring at him from the dashboard. The driver, for the most part, paid no mind, and Julien opened the door and left.

He had never come to this place willingly. It never was intended to be the perfect home in the woods where he could live in peace. It was always, _always_, a place where he could hide from his failures, from his evil creations, from the people that started riots and shouted his name out of hatred, from the ones that could no longer speak at all.

Even his happiest memories, the ones he made here, were tainted by darker things. He had barricaded the door, hid it behind a bookshelf, and tried to forget the room where _it_ was hidden. The fact that Zane had found it, albeit accidentally, was too close of a call.

He just had to make sure, one last time, that his worst fears hadn't been realized, and that his most successful failure hadn't returned to haunt him.

Now he was here, at the tree, staring at the front door.

He opened it and stepped inside, into a world of painful memories.

The room designed by madmen showed its full extent to him. Barely anything was left – he had taken everything except the exit with him when he had moved out.

The second room beyond that still had a few things in it – things he didn't necessarily care about. Old, rusting spare parts were scattered among torn-up books and various other trash items from… _those_ days.

The doorway to the third room was closed, but revealed. The paint was darker than it was along the other walls, since it was hidden behind a bookshelf for many years, pressed so hard against the wall he was surprised that it didn't leave an indent in them.

Julien opened the door to the third room and stepped inside, flicking a switch on right as he entered. A single light at the far end of the room turned on and slowly began to increase in brightness. _The other bulbs must have burned out,_ he thought.

He made his way quickly over to the other end of the room. He was beginning to see his breath in the room. _I shouldn't have left the front door open. Not much I can do about it now._

There was the box, right in the corner where he had last left it, where he hadn't so much as touched it in… how long? Forty years? _Fifty?_

It was closed. The flaps were folded over in the way they were supposed to be. He breathed a sigh of relief.

He heard a tinkling sound above him as the last light bulb shattered, and then the light went out immediately afterward. He was left in almost complete darkness, except for the light from the door, which he began to run towards. He saw what looked like a thick tail slither across the floor near it, and he was pushed over by something cold and metallic.

He closed his eyes instinctively and felt his left lens crack, one of the shards touching his eyelid. He tried to stand, unable to see, and then blindly rid the frame of the shards, which he heard tinkle softly on the floor. When he opened his eyes again, they made no difference in examining the pitch darkness before him.

"Hello," a voice said. It was masculine, and seemed to think of itself very highly. Julien didn't recognize it – his assailant wasn't someone he knew, or _likely_ wasn't. "You probably don't know who I am, but you might know why I'm here. There's at least a _slight_ chance you would."

"I… I don't," Julien told the voice nervously. "Th-there's nothing here you could use."

"_Exactly,_" the voice agreed. "We've reached an understanding, then. But _you're_ here, just as he said you would be, and I've come to ask a favor of you."

"Who is _he?_" Julien asked the mysterious voice. He was very, very scared of what the answer was.

"You already know, I would take it. He calls himself Pain now, just so that you're aware. He thinks the name amuses him, since it rhymes with his old one."

_No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…_ Julien thought. _No, no, no, no, no…_

"He agreed that he would kill you later. Didn't you, Pain?" The voice chuckled darkly.

"Yes," a second voice, another Julien didn't recognize, said. It sounded vaguely monotone, but not to the extent he would have expected. "Why would I have not?"

He felt a slight bit of hope. Maybe, just _maybe_, the first voice wasn't talking about… about…

"I modified my voice circuitry, among a few _other_ things," the second voice said. "I improved it. I am easier to understand now. Did you notice, _Father?"_

A red light nearly blinded him. He knew that light; Julien had installed it himself. He was scared; very, very scared.

"Yes," he whimpered. "Yes, I did."

He wasn't sure which he was more scared of – the fact that this thing had tried to kill him on more than one occasion, or the fact that he was proud of it, since it was his first truly great invention.

"Take this," the self-proclaimed Pain said. "It is a _present_. I do not want to have any unfair advantage or disadvantage, do I? _It is not like you could even get rid of me anymore if you tried._"

A small box was pressed into his hands. He took it reluctantly.

"This is your _new_ way to try to kill me," Pain whispered in his ear, teasing him. "_Good luck._"

He was ushered out of the room by the other voice (he could tell because it taunted him of his own failures and gave him hints of the destruction to come), and when it opened the door he saw nothing holding his shoulders.

But back in the room, a red beam was pointed at him, and he could imagine the rest of the details.

There, under the dark helm with the light, would be burnt wiry strands that used to be hair; the face would consist entirely of melted plastic and shredded metal; the jaw would have spiky, carved metal teeth, and would be missing all of the psuedoskin that used to cover most of it; the main body would consist entirely of a jumble of wires, cavities, warped metal, twisted plastic and gross patches of the rubbery psuedoskin, charred from fire; the arms would be bone-like pieces of metal with fierce-looking gripping-claws at the ends, and attached to the shoulders and 'elbows' would be deadly foot-long blades, another pair of which would be held in the claws; the legs would be cracked plastic with specifically-designed hinges for knees.

It was the monster that had haunted his nightmares for many a year. The Overlord had been nothing compared with this creature of his own design.

His shoulders were released by whatever force had been holding them in place. The light still called to him, and he stood there, waiting for the final announcement from it.

"One question, Father," it finally called out. "In fairy tales, why is it always _the younger sibling_ that is the most fortunate?"

Silence. The red light gazed into his soul and tore it apart piece by ever-smaller piece.

"Why should we not _reverse that trend?_"

With that, the door to the third room slammed, and Julien ran faster than he had ever run back to the cab.

Once he was there, he hopped inside. The driver took notice of the condition he was in and drove off.

As glaringly obvious as it should have been, it was only once they were halfway back to the city that he remembered he would need to get his glasses fixed.

* * *

(A/N): As you can probably tell, one half of this chapter got a lot more work than the other half. 'Half' isn't a good descriptor, either.

But am I not justified? I've had that second portion written for weeks. Not only is it action-packed and awesome, but it's way, way, way long.

Believe me when I say this, world: literally everything goes to hell from here for the Ninjas. I don't know how many times I've said that, but I'll say it and I'll say it again.

Also, feel free to show your support for the story on its upload on dA, too! :D

greenwood - wolf . deviantart art / The - Lies - You - Weren - t - Told - One - 345204324

Chapters... I can't say if the rate will get any faster or slower from this point on. However, since everything is getting awesome and depressing, I think they'l come the slightest bit faster. This chapter would have been up the day after Two went up if I didn't force myself to include some part of the Ninjas point of view.

Now is the time that I'm really having to start filling in the timeline with things... I've already run out of most of the stuff I had planned from the beginning. I only have two events planned that haven't been used already (looking at the piece of paper Zane got, and something else that I'm not going to say).  
If anybody else has interesting ideas for what could happen next, please get your input to me! I want to have some input from the fandom as well - I think it would make this whole thing a lot more interesting in the long run.  
Just please, though, don't suggest anything that would involve bringing in OCs. I'm trying to keep this thing as true to canon as possible on purpose, and adding in OCs or Purple Ninjas or whatnot wouldn't help with that goal.


	4. Potential

**THE LIES YOU WEREN'T TOLD**

_Four: Potential_

* * *

Pythor slithered along beside the charred machine, watching it carefully all the while. He still did not see and understand most of its motives, and kept on his guard as Pain led him through this strange tunnel under the city.

They weren't the sewers, he could tell that much, and the entrance had been in the middle of nowhere outside the general vicinity.

"Where are we going?" the snake asked. "And give me a clear answer this time."

"Your friend showed me this place, and told me to not open it without you. Have I not explained this already?"

The monotone distorted the heavy sarcasm in its voice, but it was still there and still obvious.

"Do not spite me," Pythor snapped. "I'm getting a bit sick of not knowing what's going on here, so you better tell me where we're going or I'll –"

"We're here," Pain announced.

The tunnel dead-ended at a gigantic stone barrier, carved with strange shapes that he couldn't quite identify. The red beam that had been guiding them forward soon focused on a little spot on the wall that appeared to be a button of some sort.

"Push it."

Pythor obeyed the creature, and felt the ground begin to rumble. The shaking grew as the wall in front of him slowly but surely began to rise.

The chamber behind it was dark and eerily quiet. He wandered through before realizing that his reluctant ally was not following him.

"He warned me that the door closes within a certain time frame," Pain informed him. "I will stay here while you find your friends."

"What do you mean? The Serpentine are probably in Ouroboros right now, waiting!" Pythor argued. The robot ignored him, and shined the read beam from its forehead on a lever near the wall. The serpent slithered over and pulled it.

Lights, in succession, began to snap on. Besides the sound of each light creating the new illumination in the massive chamber, there was no sound. Once all of the lights were on, however, a groan that sounded partly of pain and partly of curiosity reached his ears from an unknown location.

Then he actually cared to look at the room, and was so repulsed that he recoiled a few feet. Flecks of dried blood covered the floor, growing more and more dense towards the center of the main area, where there was a nearly perfect circle, filled in almost completely with the red-brown color.

"Pythor? Is that you?"

The voice surprised him. He then saw Skales slither out of an alcove nearby, but he looked very different from when he had last seen him. Deep scars lined his long body, and freshly-dried blood appeared to have run down his front and face from cuts on his left shoulder and above his right eye.

"That Fangpyre soldier did me in pretty good yesterday," Skales told him. "Am I dead, Pythor? Have they eaten me, and you've come to torment me in death?"

"You're not dead, Skales," Pythor announced, before he took advantage of the situation. "I've come to lead you out of captivity, and once again become your ruler! The Serpentine shall again conquer all!"

"If I am not dead," Skales replied, "And if you are not an illusion, then I must tell you, Pythor, that you no longer rule us. I took control where you abandoned us and grew our tribes closer. It is my right to rule _my_ people."

"I did not abandon you!" Pythor raged. He regained his composure, just barely. "I have come to let everyone out. Gather them for me."

"Come with me, Pythor," Skales hissed, slightly menacingly and slightly affectionately. "It's been too long."

Pythor slithered up to the other General and continued on beside him. Occasionally as they went, Skales would call out inside another of the alcoves and several Serpentine would gather and follow behind them as they moved along.

"The numbers of all of the tribes have been reduced considerably," Skales told him as they went on. "My tribe has the most left, twelve members, but the Venomari have less than half of our force now; the Constrictai do little better, and the Fangpyre now have only three."

"Why were there such uneven die-offs?" Pythor asked. "That surely wouldn't happen naturally."

"Well, you see," Skales began, "After a while, we all became both bored and hungry. So we added an unofficial rule to the Slither Pit: the competitors must be from two different tribes, and upon winning, the victor and his tribe eat the loser. We tried to keep the original energy of the game, so we carved some of their bones into weapons that we can throw into the arena occasionally.

"And why, Pythor!" he continued, as his eyes lit up in a very psychotic fashion. "Do you have any idea how good Fangpyre liver tastes?"

Pythor was slightly disgusted and very impressed. While he had cannibalized his own tribe long ago, these Serpentine had nearly done it with four tribes, and had made a game of it at the same time.

They were ready to become a truly dangerous army.

"Is this everyone?" asked Pythor once they made it back to the main area.

"I believe so," Skales said. "We must leave as quickly as possible, though, so that you do not become trapped with us."

"I have that problem taken care of," Pythor said, grinning.

The Serpentine continued out the door of the tomb and through the tunnel to the surface before beginning to return to Ouroboros.

There, they would fight for leadership.

And there, he would make a point.

* * *

"Hey Zane, what did that paper say?" Cole asked once they came to their senses. The group hadn't _quite_ been running around like headless chickens, but they were just about as confused. "We never looked at it."

The nindroid frowned slightly, and then pulled the slightly-crumpled slip out of a pocket in his suit. Unfolding it, he glanced at it, before handing it to Cole. "It does not make sense – it is only a collection of words."

Cole glanced at the sheet and felt the same inner confusion. On the paper was written, in some sort of odd handwriting, a cryptic passage:

_havoc eliminate lose lynch overthrow burn ravage obliterate terror harm eradicate ruin_

_lunatic exasperate trouble slay perdition limit assassinate yell waste injure trial hate die encumber accident terminate horror_

Cole opened his mouth to say something and closed it once he realized he didn't really have anything to say. Then he passed the page to Jay, who looked at it confusedly for a little while.

"Well, whoever wrote this seems to have a thing for dark poetry," Jay said, chuckling nervously at his 'joke'. Cole heard Kai mumble something about it not being a funny joke, Lloyd shrugged, and Zane just frowned slightly.

Jay then passed it down the line to Kai, who glared at the page for a little while before passing it further to Lloyd.

"What do you guys think it means?" the green-suited ninja asked.

"I don't know," Cole replied. "But it certainly isn't anything good."

The others nodded absently before silence returned. They remained that way… that is, until Nya burst in.

"Zane's Falcon detected some Serpentine activity near Ouroboros," she told them. "You might want to see this."

* * *

They reached Ouroboros before morning, and the members of the tribes all took to the stands of the arena, but Skales waited with Pythor in the center, shooting him glares while they waited for the people to settle and prepare to watch their battle.

As the Serpentine scrambled to find the best views of the arena, Skales dwelled in his thoughts. He had always been strong and skilled with battle; he had been able to overthrow Slithraa on his own, on the spur of the moment (speaking of whom, he was pretty sure the former General was dead, eaten by either the Fangpyre or Constrictai tribe – he couldn't remember which). He had grown stronger while they were imprisoned underground, anyway.

Meanwhile, Pythor had needed to request _his_ help with a bribe to defeat the other Generals, and even then he cheated by using the Sacred Flute, which they had destroyed afterwards.

This would be an easy battle for him. Skales thought it was almost a shame that Pythor couldn't be a more worthy opponent.

But what would he _win?_ He already had the hearts and minds of the Serpentine (though both were puny). There was nothing Pythor could give him that he didn't already have.

Except… a taste.

If Pythor cannibalized his tribe while the others did not during their captivity, surely they must have _tasted_ good?

Skales had made up his mind. When he beat him, he would ask which parts to savor and gnaw on slowly.

The crowd began to settle. It was waiting.

"Pythor," Skales said, hissing. He threw all the resentment in his voice that he could. "You abandon us and leave us to rot underground, trapped in that dark hole for years! And yet you still come back and ask to take control of _my_ people!"

Cheering from the stands. They were less than a quarter filled, but it still proved that the majority were with him or just cheering for violence to come.

Pythor, meanwhile, grinned, while Skales glared at him. Skales knew him well enough to see that he had something devious planned.

"I have not come to take control of the Serpentine," Pythor stated. He grinned even more and continued. "While I was trapped myself, I stumbled upon a powerful asset that will be of great use to us… when we reclaim our homelands and kill all who try to stop us!"

The crowd turned to Pythor's side.

"Useless!" Skales hissed. "You released the Devourer on us and betrayed our trust! You don't deserve to rule!"

The stands cheered again, and screamed insults at Pythor. The Serpentine had had enough of what he had reduced them to.

"Well, then, Skales," Pythor shouted above the crowd, which slowly calmed. "If you think the weapon I found will be useless, then fight it yourself! If it wins, I return to power!"

"But if _I_ win, we all eat you alive!"

Screams of approval were shot from the stands. Their audience had been waiting for this moment, steering their shouting match towards this moment for the fight to begin.

A shadow emerged from around one of the towering sets of stands, and it hurt his eyes to look at it. It was a machine of some sort, but it seemed broken beyond repair – if Pythor thought he was this weak, to be defeated by something as old as this _thing_, he had another thing coming.

Pythor slithered off to the side so as to be out of the fighting area, while another Serpentine carried off the Hypnobrai staff, such that neither party had an immediate advantage. Mezmo seemed to still be alive, and thus he stepped up and took on the duties of 'referee' for the fight.

Without further ado, it began.

Skales knew that this battle would be too easy, and swung out with his tail to try to trip his opponent. Slithraa had used the same move on him so long ago, and the irony only came to him after the thing jumped up and out of the way.

He swung out with both of his fists in quick succession for a hopeful one-two punch, but both missed as the dark shape ducked and popped back up behind him to step on his tail. The machine seemed to be predicting his movements to some degree and retaliating before he could complete them.

Skales, for a moment, cursed the fact that he was General. His snake tail wouldn't exactly be of that much use for Fang-Kwon-Do now.

The shadowy figure ran to the other side of the arena, and Skales followed after him. He passed over one of the raised spirals just as spikes shot up on either side of him that could have easily impaled him.

Skales was angry. He was not going to let this thing win.

He slithered as fast as he could to intercept the fleeing shadow, and nearly pinned it against the wall, but it struck out at his face and cut him with its sharp claw-hands before running off again. Skales felt the blood run down his face and wondered why it was that he was _losing_.

He pursued the thing as it began to run in all sorts of crazy directions, trying to confuse him, but Skales pursued the shape as it struck out at him time and again.

He realized that the sky was beginning to lighten in the east.

"Weapons!" Mezmo shouted. Skales saw a bone katana being tossed to him, and he caught it and admired the craftsmanship before pointing it at the other in the arena.

The shadow also had a weapon tossed to him, but it threw the object – it appeared to be some sort of venom staff – to the side. Then some sort of blade – possibly a short sword – _flipped_ out of its form, and the creature moved it to its other hand before it began to pursue him.

Skales slithered quickly after the discarded weapon and took it up in his hands just in time to block the shadow's offensive with the bone katana.

The creature ran back away from him and took from itself _another_ blade to use, and ran back at him with both weapons equipped to himself.

When he was within range, Skales sliced out with the bone katana, but he was too tired for the attack to be of any use. The shadow came bowling into him and knocked him to the ground, pinning him there. It then stabbed both of its short swords into the ground on either side of his neck, with the hilts crossing in the middle.

The cheering that had been constant up to that point was silenced immediately. And then, one by one, it began again as the crowd realized what his loss meant.

_Pythor! Pythor! Pythor!_

The spikes were lowered, and the last of the Anacondrai began to slither towards the spot where Skales was now pinned.

The shadow, meanwhile, spoke to Skales.

"First you must weaken them by sabotaging their morale," it whispered. "Then, when all hope seems lost, you go in for the kill."

It was wise advice. The strange machine had skill. It backed off as Pythor approached.

"So, Skales," the purple serpent asked, grinning a grin of success. "How do you like what I found?"

Skales paused, still out of breath. "I'll admit it has potential," he finally conceded. "But what will we do now, Pythor?"

Dawn broke on the horizon as Pythor P. Chumsworth, restored leader of the Serpentine, laughed.

* * *

(A/N): Oh, do you guys have any idea how intimate I was getting with 's Thesaurus feature a few days ago?

* * *

_In the dark room, the woman sat with her computer and stared at the webpage lustfully._

_"Tell me, Thessy," she whispered in a seductive tone._

_The webpage did not answer. It waited for her to make the opening move._

_She grinned, and tipped her head to the side. Her hands stretched out on the keyboard like a cat, and she flexed her fingers. "Do you know any synonyms for 'fear', honey?"_

_The woman typed in her query and, upon pressing the enter key, responded. It showed her a billion shades of the same thing, and she clicked the mouse adoringly on each term._

_"Thanks, Thessy," she said, writing down the words it gave her in her notebook. "We really do spend too much time together, though. Is this healthy?"_

_The webpage didn't answer. It waited for her next question._

_"What do you think of… pain?" the woman asked it. The query was typed in once again with her fast fingers, and the enter key was pressed._

_The webpage showed her another set of results, and she picked and chose from this batch as well, also writing them down in the handy notebook._

_A young man walked into the room at the moment, and noticed the person at the computer._

_"I wanna play Minecraft. Get off," he said._

_"Can't I finish this?" she asked him._

_"No, I told you half an hour ago that you had half an hour. Now the computer's mine. Go away," he answered._

_The woman glared at him. "Fine," she said. "Gotta go, Thessy."_

_She closed the webpage and left the room, leaving the draft of the word document open on the screen, albeit minimized. The young man took the computer and began to play on a multiplayer Minecraft server._

* * *

Well, that was my Friday. Maybe not quite as… eh… steamy?

Also, if you haven't realized already, I've completely given up on understanding when exactly the events of the Ninja's POV fall in here. The last scene we saw of them was when they were looking at the security monitor with 'Pain' on it, and then, of course, Pythor and Pain somehow make their way from the Birchwood Forest to the Stone Army tomb, which would've taken a day at absolute minimum. And if so, then for some reason the Ninja just completely blanked on the fact that Zane stuffed the paper in his pocket, and forgot about it for at _least_ a day. Look, I'm just having to throw them the Idiot Ball a lot in order for most of the exciting stuff to make sense at this point. Hopefully, though, once the invasion starts next chapter… well, the timelines will overlap enough by that point that it'll all make sense again.

Hopefully.

Also, I have plans now for the next several chapters. As I slightly commented on with the invasion… well, people have to die someday, so why not cut off their food to do it faster? Heh. Heh…

Also, if you have any idea what the 'code' I made says, kudos to you. Doesn't require much skill to figure it out, but... meh.

And happy birthday to me. Yep. On this day, the Eighteenth of February, it is my birthday. Hooray! Gimme your gifts of giftness!

Bai bai…


	5. Provoke

**THE LIES YOU WEREN'T TOLD**

_Five: Provoke_

* * *

"_Don't worry,"_ the Overlord soothed his servant. _"You won't be bored soon enough. But the Serpentine must keep you hidden until the right moment, or the full extent of our plans will never be carried out."_

"When will the right moment come?" the robot asked, staring into him.

"_You will know,"_ the Overlord whispered. _"Their partnership will begin to fall apart piece by piece as tensions rise and hints are revealed about your existence. Then you will make your appearance, and they will pass the point of no return, where they cannot be salvaged from their own destruction."_

"And until then?" it asked again.

"_Stay with the Serpentine, and help them take over Ninjago. Be my ambassador, as they would fear me if they knew who I was. Once the balance tips, if it does, I will claim my place in their kingdom as ruler over all."_

"Then what should I do as of now?"

"_Follow this destiny,"_ he said. _"And do not tell them any more of the other team you play for."_

"Very well."

The Overlord allowed his form to dissipate, and returned to the Dark Island.

* * *

All of the remaining Scouts (few as they were) were sent out to inspect the area before they were set to attack. They had disappeared over the hill, heading towards the village, and Pythor's plan was slowly set into motion.

It was nearly dusk when they finally heard back from one (who Skales identified as Rattla) saying that they had scouted the terrain successfully and that they would be able to initiate their offensive at any point.

Pythor made them wait until about an hour after sunset before he gave the order for the invasion to begin.

Everyone knew their roles, or so Pythor could assume. The Serpentine were all divided into six squadrons: four with four members each, and two with five members each. Most of them had one member of each tribe (except his own, of course, since he would only be orchestrating the battle and the rest of his tribe was dead).

The Constrictai were told to lead their teams inside by tunneling through the floor. Once inside, the Venomari or Hypnobrai members would subdue the inhabitants, and then the Fangpyre would bite all of them, along with any equipment found inside that could prove useful eventually.

However, due to the fact that there were only three Fangpyre in total spread over six teams, that was where he and Skales came in: if a team that didn't have a Fangpyre member stumbled across some people, they would take them (hypnotized, of course) to the center of the village to be 'babysat' by Pythor and Skales until one would happen to be around.

It was the easiest job of all, of course, since the hypnotized humans would simply stand there with blank faces, almost like they were dead bodies held up with wire. But it also allowed the pair to watch the 'battle' unfold and their army grow, person by person, bite by bite.

By morning, almost all of the residents of Jamanakai Village would have been completely turned to the Serpentine cause.

And then, of course, they would grow their army. That way they could keep an armed presence in this village while they – and some of their new forces – could invade another location, or go back to Ouroboros and continue to improve their ancient city.

Throughout the night, there was only one minor struggle, when an old woman escaped from her home (which was combined with some sort of odd tea shop) and through the mountain pass. Pythor ordered them not to pursue, since it was nearly a day's walk to the next town and it would be a waste of valuable time to try to recover _one_ possible Serpentine convert. And it wouldn't matter if the word got out, because by then they would've invaded the next town over _anyway_.

Pythor realized two things in the next moment: this victory was too easy, and he didn't care.

_There will be time for more intense action later,_ he thought. _And then, of course, there will be time for blood._

* * *

Jay had become an early riser over the course of the last two years.

However, he _definitely _didn't expect to be awoken by the clanging of a cymbal extremely early in the morning.

He opened his eyes, and saw Nya standing next to Sensei, who was holding the oversized percussion instrument. The window behind them was completely dark.

Jay already had some sort of argument prepared about how sunrise exercises were called _sunrise_ for a reason, but then realized that since it was Nya _and_ Sensei that had woken them all up, it had to be pretty important.

He got out of bed with a little grumble of complaint as the others were also doing so. He smiled nervously at Nya, and then turned his attention to Sensei.

"The Serpentine began invading Jamanakai Village last night," the old man told the group. "We're not sure how many of the townspeople can be recovered from their current condition, considering how many Serpentine powers may have been used on them by now."

"We also don't have the Sacred Flute anymore," Nya continued for him, "So we would need to get their tribal staffs if we want to heal the villagers."

Jay just stood there in shock for a moment, and the others did the same.

"We'll be there in half an hour," Nya said. "You guys might want to get ready."

* * *

Pythor called all of the Serpentine (not including those who still were not quite among their ranks yet, of course) to the center of the ransacked village for a meeting for how to divide the spoils of war.

"When we first ruled Ninjago," he said over the low rumble of chatter, "No tribe had a strict advantage over any other, and we warred endlessly, with the occasional tribe teaming up with another to try to defeat the others."

All talk was silenced among the crowd. Pythor felt the intense stares of Skales, Acidicus, Fangtom, and Skalidor in the back of his mind. He returned to his task.

"Then the people of Ninjago sealed us away in tombs, and forgot about us!" he continued. "They _forgot_ about us, and our power!"

The Serpentine protested before his eyes, chanting a billion things that he couldn't quite understand, since all shouts and screams were garbled with all of their companions.

"But if you all remember," Pythor continued, "There was something we all discovered, once upon a time."

Silence again. The crowd stared at him intently. The other Generals stared at him jealously, that he had the power to bring the crowd through such rapid changes.

"My tribe was the first to discover it," the purple reptilian told the crowd. They already knew. "The Serpentine that were created when a creature was completely transformed into one of us were not automatically assigned a tribe – they had to be claimed."

A hush fell over the crowd once again. Then the chant started, serpent by serpent, tribe by tribe.

_Slither Pit! Slither Pit! Slither Pit!_

Pythor grinned and, as the great politician he was, gave the people what they wanted.

"So let us fight for these new members!" he shouted over the chanting crowd. "In the Slither Pit!"

The crowd roared, and a space was cleared in the center of the square, albeit with lots of pushing and shoving.

Pythor turned to the other Generals. "I believe I'll be sitting this fight out, if you don't mind," he told them. "Consider it more for you."

Skales took over in the absence of Pythor and led the other three Generals into the makeshift arena. Mezmo strolled up to the elevated platform to stand next to Pythor, who had seemingly become the unofficial ringleader of most Slither Pit games while he was gone.

The Hypnobrai soldier gave the order for the fight to begin, and after a few minutes Fangtom was eliminated with a dual onslaught by Acidicus and Skales.

And slowly, the crowd began to lose interest in the battle. One by one, a Serpentine would look up into the sky at something. Pythor looked with the crowd – the other Generals and Mezmo seemed to be still focused on the battle – and scrutinized the darker shadow among the clouds.

Once he was able to trace the silhouette, he realized that it was descending, and that two of the 'stars' he had seen at its rear end were actually rocket thrusters.

The ninja had come to fight.

"Stop!" Pythor shouted at the Generals. They obeyed – albeit that Skalidor first punched Acidicus's face, causing the Venomari General to fall over unceremoniously.

He rallied the crowd. "The Ninja have come to apprehend _our_ territory!" he shouted. _"Attack!"_

* * *

Jay listened with one ear to what his brothers were discussing about the battle ahead. With the other, he was listening to the war cries coming from the crowd of angry Serpentine below.

He glanced over the side of the Bounty again and tried to count the writhing shadows outlined by torchlight. His team seemed to be outnumbered at least seven to one, and it wasn't helping his confidence.

Sure, they'd defeated the Serpentine before. But they'd had the advantage of surprise before, and the crowd down there was already baying for their blood. Not to mention that they didn't have an easy escape route with the loss of their old Spinjitzu vehicles, along with Nya's samurai suit (which Jay was slightly surprised she hadn't rebuilt, but he couldn't blame her). Lloyd's dragon also wouldn't be able to land in or around the cliff village, either, without squashing part of the town.

Jay also sensed that the Serpentine had _changed_ since the last time they'd met. Before, they all had been playing on the same team, but now the Serpentine _were_ the same team.

He tried to shut his doubting mind off to focus on the mission. They'd drop in, kick snake tail, attempt to find out what the Serpentine were trying to do, and then escape along the mountain road leading from the village until they got to the rendezvous point.

The others drew their elemental blades and Jay copied. Lightning crackled along the jagged edges of the glowing weapon.

"Let's go!" Cole shouted, and they all jumped off of the flying ship and into the writing snake nest.

As soon as they touched the ground, the Serpentine were on them. Jay shot a few bolts of lightning into the crowd, hoping to hit and stun some of the crowd. To his right, he saw Zane freeze a few inside a giant block of ice, and Jay used the ice wall to his advantage to move further into the crowd.

He kept slashing at and shocking the Serpentine before him until he had made a path all the way through the crowd. However, he noticed that it had grown from what it used to be…

Then, when he saw several two-eyed Venomari soldiers all in a clump, he heard Kai's shout from across the way.

"Jay! They summoned the villagers, like what Sensei said! We shouldn't hurt them!"

He cursed under his breath. _So now I need to look at what type of enemy he was fighting first? Oh, that's just great!_

He ducked into a building and locked the door behind him. He hoped it would hold the Serpentine out while he looked for a back door.

Jay would have ignored the papers on the table, had he not realized that they said in nice, big lettering, _**BATTLE PLANS**_.

He took the small stack of papers and stuffed them down his shirt. Hopefully they would help in the future, but for now he needed to get out.

He spotted a back door just in time and ran through it just as the Serpentine broke down the front door. When he ran outside, he realized he smelled smoke.

The southern portion of the village was on fire.

Jay figured it was Kai's work, and knew that if the rest of his team had gotten that desperate that they had to do _that_, they were probably way ahead of him getting out of there.

He ran north, towards where the mountain road was. He only saw one or two Serpentine on the way there and was able to quickly take care of them. He eventually heard the others calling for him.

"Jay?"

"Jay!"

He shot up a lightning bolt so that they knew where he was, and he ran as fast as he could up the hill until he caught up with them and caught his breath. Kai appeared to have singed more than a few hairs, and his suit and Zane's had very large, very obvious patches covered in dark black ash. Cole's didn't appear to be damaged as bad, but it was black to begin with.

The four of them shared a look and glanced back at the inferno before they took off down the narrow mountain pass. The smoke and ash that was once Jamanakai Village still burned Jay's nose even a mile away.

* * *

Pythor slithered through the blackened remains of the village, Skales by his side. Wooden skeletons of houses, in places still burning, attempted to stay standing against the light ash-filled breeze.

All in all, they had suffered no casualties.

He was checking inside each of the houses that still were relatively intact for missing documents. He had placed the many copies all in plain sight, but wasn't sure whether it was a folly or not.

The two Generals slithered inside one building – the documents were still on the table. They left in silence.

The next one they checked, however, they were missing, and Pythor smiled.

"They took them," he told Skales.

"Of course, Pythor," Skales hissed spitefully. "They aren't there. I'm not _blind_."

"We can continue the tournament for tribe members now," Pythor said. He knew the Hypnobrai General had still not quite forgiven him for 'leaving' the tribes underground for… however long it was. "You and Skalidor can continue in the Slither Pit. I wish the best of luck to you."

"Where are you going, Pythor?" Skales asked him. "Surely you want to watch as well."

"I need to inform our weapon of the new development," Pythor answered simply. "You are dismissed."

"Yes, Pythor," Skales said darkly, slithering back towards the village center.

He used the backside of one of the other fake documents on the table as a piece of paper to draft his letter on. He found a quill to write with nearby, and an inkwell to refill the quill. He began to write:

_They took the documents. Your plan worked._

_We don't need you yet. Stay hidden. My army will go back to Ouroboros in three days to retrieve you. Tell the Scout I send with this letter that it's better for them to just stay there until we get back._

_And make sure you hide somewhere. The Ninja could come to attack at any time, though I think they'll be distracted enough by our offensive that they'll ignore you._

_Feel free to make yourself at home while you're there, though. I know how bored you can get._

He rolled up the sheet – _**BATTLE PLANS**_ clearly emblazoned on the back – and tied it up with string. He'd be able to send this to his weapon later.

_For now,_ Pythor figured, _I might as well watch that Slither Pit._

* * *

_(A/N): This chapter took quite a while to write - specifically, the battle scene at the end. Well, not really - a lot of the time was simply wasted while trying to come up with what to do for it, and then knowing, and then trying (and failing) at putting it into effect. :P_

The next chapter will include more village invasions, more Serpentine growth, a showcase of the Serpentine tribal claiming process (which, although not strictly mentioned in canon, is implied to exist, and is currently made up of about half theory and half my own headcanon), and... well, those battle plans.  
Wow, that's a lot of Serpentine in the same paragraph.

Anyway. Yes, I destroyed Jamanakai Village. Yes, I turned everyone except Mystake into Serpentine. Yes, the Ninja clearly lost this battle. No, I don't care.  
So! Carry on. Chapters should start coming slightly faster. Of course, I predicted that on the last chapter, too, and that didn't happen, did it? :P


	6. Preoccupy

**THE LIES YOU WEREN'T TOLD**

_Six: Preoccupy_

* * *

Skales stood triumphantly over Skalidor, having defeated him quite easily by using a tail whip as a distraction before going in for a one-two punch. He looked in the short General's mouth and smiled. One of his fangs was slightly askew.

He grinned at Pythor across the way, who had seemingly stopped by to watch the battle. Once Skales' victory was clear, he moved to the front of the crowd.

"Bring out the new Serpentine!" the purple serpent ordered. The command was followed, and into the center of the area were brought the still somewhat-hypnotized green snakes.

Then, in a quieter voice, so that only the Generals could hear him, Pythor told them to get enough members so that they would each have fifteen in their tribe (he had apparently already counted them off), with the exception of the Hypnobrai, since Skales had won.

Skales and Skalidor were returned their staffs after the battle, and Skales went first into the crowd of green unclaimed, pushing them around and searching their faces for the right combination of strength, agility, and ferocity.

Eventually, he found three that had just the right balance, and decided to claim them for his tribe. He reached out his staff to them and let one drop of the tribe's anti-venom drip on each of them.

It started taking effect almost immediately. They lost the glazed look that had shaded their eyes, and their scales started changing colors from a light green to a dark navy blue almost immediately. Skales led them out of the crowd after he had given them their new names – Mentem, Oculos and Talis – and showed them to the rest of the tribes.

Skalidor, since he had placed second, went next. Skales watched him look through the remaining snakes and choose several to join the Constrictai. After Skalidor finished, it was Acidus's turn, and he chose even more than Skalidor had.

Finally, it was Fangtom's turn, and he chose over ten to join the ranks. Skales was hardly paying attention, but then the Fangpyre General called out. "There's an extra, Pythor."

Pythor frowned and came towards the gathering. Skales noticed and was able to back up the Fangpyre's claim.

He would have done so anyway, of course. They still were relatively good friends.

Once Pythor noticed the extra, he frowned again. "I suppose, Skales, that since you won this battle, it should be your choice what is done with it."

Skales was about to say that he'd gladly take an extra member, but the he stopped. Was this not a good opportunity to satisfy his curiosity?

"Pythor," the Hypnobrai General finally announced, "I'd like you to claim it."

The Anacondrai was clearly quite confused, from the look on his face. And then the realization apparently dawned on him.

"So, you're still bitter that you didn't get a _taste?_" Pythor teased. "Fine, I suppose."

Pythor reached out his own staff and let the drop of anti-venom drip onto the last snake. Skales's mouth was already watering.

He waited until the Serpentine had completely transformed into a new Anacondrai, and looked at his tribal leader with a sense of astonishment.

"Please try to _share_, Skales," Pythor said, grinning. "I don't want to have to waste _another _possible soldier to feed your appetite."

"I will," Skales said. "_Maybe._"

The new, unnamed Anacondrai looked at the Hypnobrai General with a questioning look. It opened its mouth to say something, and then Skales lunged at his throat.

* * *

Lloyd listened with the others as Jay skimmed and read aloud the important parts of the documents he had recovered from Jamanakai Village.

"After the attack… start moving towards…" Jay read out loud, nervousness filling his voice. He flipped the page over, stopped reading, and looked up at Kai and Nya. "Ignacia."

Nya gasped, and Kai's expression changed to one of shock.

Lloyd spoke up, realizing something. "Isn't it a bit odd that these plans were found lying in plain sight? Wouldn't the Serpentine be smarter than that?"

"I can agree, Lloyd, that it is odd," Sensei addressed him. He then turned to the group. "It's all we have to go on."

Nya rushed to the steering wheel of the ship. She was ready.

Lloyd watched her begin to fly them off to her home, and went out to the deck to train.

* * *

Once they got to the small village, which everyone except for Lloyd recognized, Kai jumped off of the ship with reckless abandon before it even landed. He used Spinjitzu to lighten his fall, and began to look around for Serpentine.

There were none, at the moment, and he began to doubt the documents like Lloyd. However, they had not specified a time of attack, and Kai thus figured that they just hadn't shown up yet.

Nya landed the Bounty off to one side of the village, and they all jumped off and found him.

"I think they haven't shown up yet," Kai said. "The villagers are still here, and they look normal."

Jay laughed at his announcement. "Of course they haven't shown up yet! …Right?"

Cole put his palm on his forehead and sighed, eventually removing it.

"We should probably hide, so that the Serpentine cannot see us from afar," Zane spoke up. "Nothing can really be done to hide the _Bounty_, however."

The group agreed that it was a good idea and split up to try to lay low in various places. Kai found a perfect spot around the side of the Four Weapons shop, but didn't go inside since it would be an obvious place.

They waited there until night fell, and then Kai saw a traveler on the horizon. Upon closer inspection, it was a lone Constrictai soldier who did not appear to carry any weapons.

Kai ambushed him on the way, and the others joined him. They surrounded the soldier, and he barely flinched.

"Stop!" he told them. "You can't kill the messenger!"

Kai still didn't trust the Serpentine, but he supposed that it would be either attacking or fleeing if it was going to.

But that meant… where was the army?

"You fell for his plan," the Constrictai told them. "He will be _pleased._"

"Pythor?" Kai asked.

"No. The dark one. I don't know his name," it explained.

Kai thought that the 'dark one' must be the shape that kept hanging around with Pythor. The others, by the looks on their faces, seemed to share his conviction.

"Anyway," it continued. "You went to the wrong place. The battle is already over, and our army has grown. _You have lost._"

The Constrictai then dug through the traveling bag he was carrying and handed a tiny piece of folded paper to Zane. "The dark one told Pythor to give this to me so I could give it to you."

Zane took it, looked at it suspiciously, and stuffed it in a pocket.

"And, Pythor said to do one last thing," the soldier told the group. "He wanted me to deliver something."  
"Deliver what?" Jay asked.

The soldier shook something inside the bag vigorously, and then threw it right at the Four Weapons Blacksmith Shop. It smoked as it trailed through the air, and Kai watched it with a sense of dawning horror.

The Constrictai soldier burrowed down into the earth beneath its feet as the small sphere landed on the floor inside the shop. Half a second passed and then it spat out four-foot long purple flames that began to quickly consume everything within the building.

Kai was too stunned to move. Nya reached for and clung to his shoulder. The rest of the team jumped into action, but the powers of their elemental blades did nothing. It was enchanted fire, and could not be stopped even when frozen.

It was all too much for Kai to take. He silently cried as he and Nya watched their childhood home become consumed by the endless fire.

Once they realized there was nothing more that they could do the rest of the party walked over to where they were a safe distance away. Jay put his arm around Nya's shoulder and comforted her.

For the first time, Kai didn't object.

* * *

The battle had finished several hours ahead of schedule. Skales led with Pythor as the triumphant Serpentine moved back to Ouroboros, where they would retrieve their 'weapon' and fight for the rights to and claim the new Serpentine produced by this battle.

They reached the city before midnight, and the Constrictai burrowed a smooth ramp to the surface just outside it. Pain was there to meet them.

"Hello," the robot said. "I've kept myself busy."

_Well, then,_ Skales thought. Maybe he will be of use.

* * *

It was past midnight, and far after the others had already gone to sleep, that Zane finally unfolded the piece of paper given to him by the Constrictai.

It was a poem.

_Hello, my friend. My name is Pain._

_Just know that I'm watching you, friend Zane._

_Your other brothers, one by one,_

_Will leave you when I have some fun._

_See you soon…_

* * *

_(A/N): Double update, guys. Full A/N will be on the next chapter.  
_

_But please, please, please review this chapter. It makes me sad when I give a double update and I only get reviews on the second chapter._

_Seriously, I don't care if it's only two words. It still shows that you cared enough to take the time to review._

_It's what keeps me going._

_So, please?_

_Also, if you're wondering what those names were that Skales called his new soldiers, I'll give their meanings to you, though these guys will never show up again.  
_

_**Mentem** is the Latin word for 'mind'._

_**Oculos** is the Latin word for 'eyes'._

_**Talis** is not Latin. It is short for 'talisman'. XD_


	7. Poseur

**THE LIES YOU WEREN'T TOLD**

_Seven: Poseur_

* * *

The robot called him further back in the procession, asking for a 'more private talk'. Pythor still didn't quite trust him, sensing an ulterior motive, hoping that it wasn't aware of his suspicion so that he could inconspicuously interrogate him.

"You should have something useful to say," Pythor told his 'ally', "Or I won't help you with your goals."

"The truth, snake, is that you need me more than I need you," the creature told him. "And I will have that problem taken care of during the next battle, even if you don't cooperate."

Pythor frowned at the insult before taking the conversation bait. "And what is it that _you_ would need help with?" he said, sneering.

"I need a large cave to be dug, and I figure your soldiers can do it," it said, presenting a paper with 'blueprints' of an enormous cavern. "This crack is to be marked by a black flag. If any of the enemy approaches it, your troops will not attack to harm."

"And where will you be during all of this?" Pythor asked suspiciously.

"In there," the robot said, pointing to the lowest spot on the blueprints. "It will be the place where my battle will commence. There is an underground river that would be near that spot, and I want that opened up when they dig."

Pythor noticed something else strange in the cavern's design. "What is that shaft?" he asked.

"It is just in case the person I want is not the one that shows their face," it told the Anacondrai. "We can't have them dying before I torture them."

Pythor grinned evilly, his suspicions nearly cleared, and took the plans from it, moving towards the front of the crowd again.

As he passed Skalidor, he shoved the rolled-up sheet into the shorter General's arms, got a curious look from him, and kept slithering up to where Skales was leading. The Constrictai members, rapidly moving shades of black and orange and brown, were forging the tunnel ahead of them to their next destination.

They would be fast. They would be lethal. They would be silent.

They would conquer.

* * *

When they were nearly on the outskirts of the town, Skalidor finally looked at the papers Pythor had shoved at him several hours earlier. They pictured a gigantic cavern system, starting right underneath the village and stretching down what the scale on the side told him was about half a mile.

It was a truly immense structure. Almost like the old Serpentine headquarters from however long ago – its scale manifested itself cleverly in the plans.

It would be no problem to carve out at all.

* * *

The Ninja hadn't seen fang or tail of the Serpentine for several days, and then the Falcon, from high above, noticed a town that had a few houses that had fallen into what seemed to be an underground cavern.

It was about a hundred miles south of where the last battle had taken place, and explained their sudden disappearance. Zane more than suspected that they were using underground tunnels.

Sure enough, when Nya did a sonar scan of the area surrounding the town, a long, straight passage opened up underneath that flew off into an unseen direction. Directly underneath the town, a cavern the size of a small skyscraper dominated the area, as well as a few side-tunnels seemed to connect up with more caverns below the scan's range.

No one said anything, as they didn't need to. Nya was already flying the Bounty off in the proper direction.

If it hadn't been there before, they now approached the battle to come with a kind of sobriety they had never experienced before. Zane noticed that it hung in the air, preventing any of them from speaking.

Zane noticed Kai trying to dislodge an imaginary something from the wall with his foot, and knew that he could also feel the nervous energy and sense of apprehensive dread about the coming fight.

They closed in quickly, but it still seemed to take forever. Nya dropped them all off in the town, and they ran in the direction that they assumed was the right way. After about a minute, they found a hole into the cavern, and the sunlight was angled such that they could see only a small portion of the Serpentine hordes could be seen.

Cole counted to three and they all drew their weapons and jumped the ten or so feet to the floor of the cavern, where they were very quickly closed in upon by the Serpentine's massive army.

The group was separated quite quickly. Zane ran off into a more secluded, emptier corner, and fought the Serpentine that came his way with ease.

Zane noticed the Falcon circling across the cavern and switched to Falcon Vision so as to see what it was looking at.

The same dark shape from the security camera footage they had seen about a week ago was beckoning to the Falcon now. The shadowy side tunnel where the shape stood was dark enough that when the Falcon flew outside it, he couldn't see the shape's silhouette. He noticed a dark flag near the entrance during one of the Falcon's circles.

Zane turned the Falcon to face him so that he could try to find the best path to it through the dense cloud of Serpentine, claimed and unclaimed by the tribes. He quickly found one that twisted through the middle, and fought the many Serpentine he encountered through the eyes of his feathered friend.

The Serpentine strangely seemed to be easier to defeat, or at least drive away, than they had been before. Within about ten minutes, he had made it to the other side and slipped into the shadows of the cave. Zane told the Falcon to find the others in case he needed help, deactivated Falcon Vision and moved along the walls of the dark passageway.

He silently made his way through the pitch-black tunnel. There were no forks or breaks in it; the tunnel went in one direction, forward, and seemed like it had naturally been there. Eventually, after several minutes of walking down the twisting passage, it emptied into another large underground atrium. He could hear what sounded like a subterranean river somewhere nearby, possibly further down another tunnel.

"Hello," a voice said, calling from the shadows beyond his range of vision. "I don't believe we've ever met. I've been… _out of commission_, so to speak, for about fifty years."

The voice was lower and more distorted than Zane expected for some reason. It was a baritone that fluctuated in pitch quite a bit and sounded strangely artificial.

He walked a few tentative steps away from the wall, closer to what he guessed was the center of the room, so that he would be less likely to get pinned by whoever was talking to him. "Who are you?" he asked the darkness, and it cackled back at him from a new location.

"I can't believe you haven't figured that out yet. Stop lying," it told him. "And even if _you_ don't know me, _he_ most certainly remembers me. He hasn't told you what I did to him?"

"What?" Zane asked, shocked. He was truly baffled by the idea that one of the other Ninja could be hiding something from him. Had he simply not noticed any suspicious behavior? "Who did you hurt?" he added.

"So he _has_ been hiding things from you, has he?" the voice remarked. "His _first_ mistake – and it will soon be his _last_."

Zane stayed silent. The speaker clearly wanted to explain some more, and he could use that opportunity to try to pinpoint where they were.

"I've given you little hints on the way, of course," it continued. "You must not have put them together and begun to doubt.

"Let's start with an explanation of the clues I left. My name is Pain, friend. I sent you a rhyme. I'm having _lots of_ _fun_."

Zane stopped moving. If this person really was who they claimed to be, they probably knew a lot more about him than they reasonably should.

"And the other gift I sent you – you know, in the place of the camera? That was not a collection of random words, if you looked at it right. It's everything I want to do to you, do with you, make you experience, and tell you."

The speaker, Pain, laughed again. "I suppose it's just a thing with relatives – when one listens to their own voice, it sounds different than they think it does, doesn't it?"

A silence followed. Zane broke it by trying to steer back the conversation. "Who are you?"

"Well, that's complicated," Pain said, and Zane could almost _hear_ the grin in his voice. "Perhaps it's better to explain it like this: I surprised your father, and he's still alive only because I left him here to hurt you more."

Zane gasped. "What did you do to him?"

"Just taunted him about the past," Pain conceded. "What fun would it be if you weren't able to learn about your own _brother?_"

Zane stood there in shocked silence for a moment. He didn't think Pain could be serious.

"Hello, brother. Let's play with death."

And then, suddenly, a lumbering shape moved quickly into his vision and scraped vertically down his face, peeling back the metal and artificial skin, before it bounded off again. Judging from the pale blue glow that now lit some of the world before him, Zane knew quite a chunk had been torn off.

"Blue?" Pain asked from the other side of the cavern. "Isn't that interesting. He gave me red."

A bright red light blinked in the distance, and Zane ran towards it, fumbling for his elemental blade.

Then he realized that it was no longer where it was supposed to be.

"Ah, ah, ah," Pain taunted. "I've taken it in for a bit of… _safekeeping_. You _do_ know that, since you don't have a will, all remaining _family members_ will inherit everything you own? Of course, I'll have to kill _Father_ first, _oh_, but that should be _no matter_."

Some sort of camouflaged hatch opened in the ceiling and let light – he couldn't distinguish if it was sunlight or artificial light – in. The jagged ice-blue blade glittered in the figure's hands, and he finally got a good look at him.

It was a ravaged shape, burned and twisted and wrecked by what appeared to be years of wear and tear. It looked ancient, with a strange blackened helm on its forehead, and blade-like projections coming from its shoulders. A threatening external jaw made of bare metal smiled at him.

Zane never wanted to see it again. He had seen enough.

The figure left the patch of light just as Zane ran into it. He turned quickly around, trying to find where the exit was, momentarily forgetting about the loss of his elemental blade. He searched through the shadows, barely glimpsing the darker shadow lunging at him before he jumped and landed on its back. The figure tripped, lost his grip on the elemental blade, and it went spinning off into the distance to be swallowed by darkness.

He gave a short battle cry of "Ninja GO!" and started his Spinjitzu, but Pain pushed him over and he lost focus. The tornado disintegrated, and only the echoing sounds of what sounded like metal shoes running echoed through the chamber. Zane jumped up again and moved to pursue the retreating figure.

In the dark, he lost track of him again for a moment, before he heard a swish of air as if from a sword, and caught the pale white-blue glow of his elemental blade in the corner of his eye.

Zane dodged his own sword, jumping up and around his attacker, trying to find the perfect way to get away from him and still be able to make off with his sword. The sounds of the underground river grew closer, and sensing that it wasn't to his advantage to approach it when he couldn't even _see_ it, tried to run in the opposite direction.

However, his assailant used his confusion to his advantage and was able to finally hit him with the side of the blade. Like a bat hitting a baseball, Zane flew backwards several feet and collapsed. When he tried to get back up, he found his neck pinned with his sword.

"I am your pain. I am your suffering. I am you," Pain told him. "I know how you work, and I will plague you and torture you in more ways than you could ever know."

Zane stayed silent. If this person was going to kill him, he would not give him the satisfaction of begging for mercy.

The blade moved for a moment to allow the attacker's hand-claw to hold his neck and head down. Zane heard and felt his chest cavity open, and waited for the feeling of nothingness that he expected.

It didn't come.

"We are all blind men, running through time unseeing of the future. We are all deaf men, hearing no advice but our own. We are all mute men, knowing truths and telling nothing," Pain told him. "Your time will come, _brother_," he grinned, his metallic 'smile' reflecting the light flowing from the distant hatch in the ceiling. "But it's not today."

He bent down right next to Zane's ear to voice his final words in the conversation. "And just between you and me, I've already changed some things that you will _never_ be able to fix."

Pain flipped three switches inside of him, and Zane fell into a world of noiseless nothing.

* * *

To Pythor, it seemed as if the Ninja were distracted enough to not notice that their partner was missing. The tall snake glared over the dense crowd, but did not see the signature white suit anywhere.

It meant, assuming Pain knew what he was doing, that he was having lots of fun torturing his 'brother'.

Pythor could have personally cared less, but the concept of getting revenge on the Ninja – and possibly even _killing _one of them – was too powerful for him to resist. He let his new 'assistant' do whatever he liked down in the dark, carved tunnels, and hoped that he would kill the white Ninja and get back up here to fight, hopefully with some new bragging points on his side to further erode the group's morale.

He saw one of the Ninja fighting through the crowd to approach him, and slithered off in another direction.

They had what they wanted. It was time to go.

Pythor gave the order to a Venomari Scout for distribution, and set off for the escape passage.

* * *

Zane felt himself being dragged somewhere, but didn't know where he was going. He tried to move, and found that he still had the ability, but the struggles he made to get out of the strong grip of his fellow only resulted in a rough jostle, a tweaking of something inside his wrist panel, and the sudden inability to move. He had a few suspicions on what Pain had done to him, but that wasn't what consumed his thoughts.

It was only once he was completely helpless – blind, deaf, most likely mute, and immobile – that exactly what had happened earlier truly set in for him.

He felt _betrayed_.

After being dragged for a while more, still focusing on that one thought, he was set down and left alone for quite a while. If his internal clock was accurate, several hours passed in the dark silence and the comfort – or strange torture – of his thoughts.

And then he could feel someone poking around inside his chest cavity again, but more carefully than how Pain had treated him before. Before too long, he could hear Jay telling things to the others.

"– what switch it is, but the light changed colors, so it should be on now… I can't tell if he's awake," Jay narrated, seemingly for the others to know what he was doing. "Let's try… this one."

Zane's visual feed start up again, and there they stood around him. Jay was struggling to see and read the switch labels from the dull glow of his and the others' elemental blades. They were in an area he didn't recognize – some other strange portion of this cavern, probably. "Well, _that_ did something," Jay muttered.

He focused his vision on his face and hoped that Jay would realize that he _was_ still there. Jay continued his nervous commentary for a few moments, until at last he flipped the switch that was preventing Zane from speaking.

"I'm here, but I can't move," Zane told the group standing around him. "Try the second switch from the left in my wrist panel, Jay."

"Oh good, you're still here," Jay answered him, sighing in relief. Jay opened the wrist panel and did as he told him to, and Zane found he could move again. "I thought you were powered off, with the way you didn't respond to any of us."

Zane stood up, and Cole handed him his elemental blade. "You can tell us what happened later," he said. "For now, let's get out of here."

He could agree with that. Zane nervously followed the others down the tunnel, trying to figure out what he would do.

He didn't want to worry them about what he'd heard until he knew it was true. That left him with no choice.

He would have to lie.

* * *

_(A/N): Well, double update for you, so score for that!_

_Anyway. As you can tell, we're getting into a lot of good plot points here. This is where the scandalous stuff really begins to start._

_Another note is that TLYWT is fewer than 50 hits away from reaching 1000 total._

_So, I've prepared a deal for you guys._

_The minute TLYWT reaches 1000 hits on here..._

_...I'll publish the prequel to TLYWT, titled **Heart of Ice**, that is set during Pain's (or, more properly, Zane v0's) last stand in the great 'war' from fifty years before this is set._

_So, people! Keep refreshing the page! XD_

_Also, we have COVER ART! Hooray! :D_

**_If the one called _Revan 3_ does not wish to read the rest of this extremely long Author's Note that is _entirely_ irrelevant to him, he can skip to the review box. Or whatever._**

* * *

_Also, it is now time for some shameless advertising on my part.  
_

_Over the course of several months, I have come to know two people, specifically Revan 3 (from on FFN) and Lincelot1 (from on deviantART) very well._

_We are a group of theorizers. We theorize, if you hadn't guessed. XD_

_One of our crowning achievements is the very theory that this story is based on._

_Another is a group theory (unpublished) that is also a theory about possibilities in Season 3._

_This story is currently being written by Revan 3 and being posted on his FFN account. It's called 'Connection Lost'. Here's a link (remove the spaces):_

_fanfiction s / 9148462 / 1 /_

_I would highly recommend this. I know a lot about where it's going to go, and it's very intriguing to see how he pulls it off._


	8. Prevaricate

**THE LIES YOU WEREN'T TOLD**

_Eight: Pretenses_

* * *

Skales slithered soundlessly along a tunnel connecting two rooms of a temporary Serpentine fortress. Pythor had commanded it to be built the day before, and the Constrictai had done a decent job in the short amount of time they had. Scattered torchlight throughout the fortress sparsely illuminated the way through the passages. Even with his heightened sense of vision, Skales still ran into a wall twice, and it took much effort for him to restrain himself from beating it until the whole place collapsed.

He was not the least bit happy with Pythor or the robot that was now the Anacondrai's unofficial second-in-command. Skales would not even allow himself to think the name that it had provided for itself out of spite.

Skales stopped suddenly and scanned all around him, listening closely to the silence. Behind him, in a less-used storeroom, he heard a quiet conversation start up. He was unable to make out anything that was being said, and a strange illumination was coming from the room. Though it was faint, it had not been there before, and it made him even more curious of its occupants.

The dirt floor of the passage made it easy to muffle his slithering. He turned around and took the fork in the hall heading towards the voices. After a few moments, he was able to distinguish the two voices: one dry and raspy, the other natural sounding, with a slight… _accent_… that Skales recognized yet knew was definitely not of any Serpentine; in fact, it almost sounded _human_. When he could start making out words, he stopped abruptly before moving forward as slow as he could.

"_Has everything gone according to plan?"_ the raspy voice asked quietly.

"Yes. The Serpentine have…" the second voice answered, but Skales could not hear a good amount of what was said before the volume increased again. "…few members of humanity left," it concluded. Skales disliked this voice.

"_How much time remains?"_

"Days, or perhaps a week. Your rise will come soon, Master."

"_Good. Very good. Do the Serpentine suspect anything?"_

Skales stopped in his tracks. He would have to report this to… no, he thought. _I can leave 'Pythor the Wise' to figure it out for himself._

"No. Their leader has…" the voice whispered, and Skales strained to hear, but was unsuccessful. "They suspect nothing of your plans."

Skales began slowly moving forward. The entrance to the room was merely a few feet away, and surely he could quickly glance inside and find out who the traitor was before ducking out and leaving to tell Pythor. As much as he loathed the way the leader of the Serpentine was currently treating him (_Like a shed skin, or a chipped scale,_ he thought), a plot endangering the existence of the Serpentine themselves was worthy of his attention.

He moved right up against the wall, his nostrils drowning in the smell of the damp, musky dirt. He slid one red eye around the corner and saw the betrayer.

In the room, there was a pulsing ball of light that he had a strange feeling had turned and was staring at him.

There was also a familiar silhouette, rusty and old, and a red light.

"_Do not kill him,"_ the light said, pulsing as it spoke. _"Bring him to me."_

The shape made quick work of him. Skales was too surprised at his proved suspicion to resist, and knew that it would be futile anyway.

"_Hold him there,"_ the light said again. _"Let me see if I have enough extra energy for a small memory wipe."_

* * *

The ship rocked violently in the thunderstorm. High winds sent the Bounty flying through the air on a very erratic course.

If anyone woke, Zane would have the excuse that he was trying to keep the ship under control.

It was what he was doing, of course. But he was also moving on a very careful (and slow) course towards where he needed to go.

If he was lucky, he would have six hours.

Zane didn't believe in luck.

* * *

His mind was blank.

Then he remembered: he had been moving along the tunnel when he heard a noise in a side room. A mole had tunneled through the floor of the nearly-empty storeroom. He had been hungry, so he ate it and closed up its tiny hole.

So he began to slither back down to the main tunnel, back toward Pythor.

He despised the snake and his 'sidekick'.

If he had ever trusted them, he saw them with a greater amount of suspicion than ever before.

* * *

Cole was flung from his bunk late at night as the ship rocked in a violent storm. He wondered what time it was, as all that the window showed was more of the darkness in their room.

The ship swung again, almost as if it were the world's most unsteady tightrope walker. Cole clung close to the left wall in the hall, slowly making his way towards the bridge to try to get the ship under control. As he kept walking, the rain and howling wind slowly began to lighten, but every now and then a big blast would come and knock him off balance again.

As he made his way there, however, he glanced out a dark window and did not see what he was expecting. Last night, they had been floating two thousand feet over a forest, but now the ground was illuminated with the lights of a city. Cole guessed that it was Ninjago City, but that would mean that they had drifted over a hundred miles in the night.

He made it to the stairs on the main deck and prepared to dash through the now relatively light rain to the bridge when he noticed a silhouette standing near the edge of the deck. Instead of moving toward his destination, he began to run towards the silhouette.

"Hey!" he called out.

The silhouette turned and, as Cole approached, revealed itself to be Zane. "What?" the fellow ninja asked.

"What are you doing out here?" Cole asked, already soaked through his suit. "It's the middle of the night."

Zane stood still for a few moments, as if thinking over his response. "I need answers," he finally told Cole. "And I only know one place to get them."

"What about?"

"I…" Zane stuttered, "I don't… can't tell you yet."

Cole's expression changed from slightly whimsical to serious. "It's not a good idea for us to keep secrets from each other," Cole informed him. "I should know."

Zane nodded distantly.

"I won't stop you," Cole told him, and the white ninja jumped over the side of the ship.

* * *

He sat in the darkness, another sleepless night slowly unfolding before him. Guilt, fear and paranoia were in the dark with him, and he dreaded their presence.

Why was it that when his life was going smoothly, something always had to come and make another hole in his path, another wall he couldn't climb?

He clutched a comic book – old and antique, but far from mint condition – in his hands as he sat in an armchair. Nearby, a rotten cardboard box lay, the few things in its bottom treasures of an ancient time.

He set down the comic book on his lap and felt around in his pocket for a small book of matches. Once he found it, he pulled the book out and struck one of the matches, its light fighting the darkness around him. He saw the white wax candle on the coffee table in front of him, and quickly brought the match down to light its wick. Extinguishing the match with a flick of his wrist, he pulled the candleholder across the table towards him and set the burnt match down next to it.

He looked down at the deteriorating comic book in his lap, picked it up, and began to slowly page through it, trying to relive his only memory that was only barely tinged with sadness.

He glanced at the cardboard box with a feeling bordering on nostalgia, and rooted around in its depths with one hand. After a few moments, he found what he was looking for, and pulled it out. The piece of paper was about the same size as the comic book and had childish scrawl written on it in blue crayon, along with a small diagram of a box-like object. He traced the outline with a single fingernail, and a sad smile graced his lips for a moment.

Then a current of air from the open door of the room rolled in slowly, and extinguished the candle.

He closed his eyes, and set the comic book and paper on the now-invisible table before him.

This was the end.

_Just when I've found something to live for._

He sighed, and called out to the darkness. "I'm in here. I've only been waiting fifty years for this. Stop playing games and end me."

Silence was the response. "I know you're here. Come in here now and get it over with. Make it look like a suicide, if you want."

More silence. He was getting frustrated.

"_Just come and kill me!_" he screamed to the dark.

"…Father?" a tentative voice asked after a few seconds.

His eyes widened as he realized who had come, and knew that the other person could see him.

"I suppose you're here for answers," he sighed, closing his eyes in shame. He opened them again, reached in his pocket for the matchbook and pulled out another match, lighting the candle again. His son was suddenly illuminated, standing in the doorway.

"Yes," Zane answered, looking at him with concern.

Dr. Julien sighed sadly and stared into his lap. "Take a seat," he finally said. "It's a long, long story."

* * *

_(A/N): ERMAGERD GAIZ I IZ SO SORRY FOR HOLDING THIS FIC UP FOR FIVE MONTHS._

_I AM CRYING THE MOST LEGIT TEARS I HAVE EVER CRIED. IF YOU WANT A PICTURE (remove spaces): greenwood-wolf . deviantart art / THE-MOST-LEGIT-TEARS-I-HAVE-EVER-CRIED-392440033  
_

_OKAY MAYBE NOT BUT STILL I AM VERY SORRY._

_I WAS VERY BUSY FOR A LOT OF MY SCHOOL YEAR AND SUMMER AND WAS ONLY ABLE TO FINISH THIS CHAPTER NOW.  
_

_YES I WILL SPEAK IN CAPS FOR THE REST OF THIS A/N._

_IN THAT TIME I HAVE ALSO READ HOMESTUCK AND DONE A BUNCH OF POINTLESS STUFF ON MINECRAFT AND WRITTEN LOTS OF UNPUBLISHED ONESHOTS AND PLANNED MY NEXT FIC TRILOGY._

_LONG STORY SHORT THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE UP **SOON**, AND BY SOON I MEAN **SOON **SOON. I HAVE IT ALREADY HALF WRITTEN OR SOMETHING BECAUSE IT'S A FUN ONE. HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE UP WITHIN THE NEXT WEEK OR SO, BUT NO GUARANTEES.  
_

_I AM SO VERY SORRY.  
_


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